You Are Slowly Killing Me
by and if I dream
Summary: She was determined not to love him, but it was war, after all, and in the end it was harder to not than it was to give in. [Jily]


_Sort-of-but-not-really-songfic. Enjoy!_

* * *

 _if i pulled a you on you_

How many times do you have to say you're not in love with someone to make it true? Because for all the no's I've given, the screaming matches and the promises of eternal hatred (even though we both know it's all one endless joke), I can't get over the simple facts.

The sun shines. The stars twinkle. The sky is blue and the grass is green and the earth is round and we will all die someday, someday soon if the war keeps raging and the ground underneath me keeps moving.

Also.

James Potter is tall, and princely, and charming and handsome. Sweet and funny and endlessly stubborn but I've told him one hundred no's and not a single yes.

And here I am living in terror. I have lost everything and yet l can hold on to one thing I pretend not to claim- the heart of James Potter. And ask me any day of the week and vehemently I'll tell you no, absolutely not, such a prat!

Such a gorgeous and terribly funny and stunningly wonderful _prat._

 _you wouldn't like that_

* * *

 _hello it's me_

A story: One day long ago I met a boy with messy black hair and deep hazel eyes and a penchant for creating mischief.

* * *

 _i hate you i love you_

Another: One day a long time ago but not quite so long ago I fell in love with the same boy.

 _i hate that i love you_

* * *

 _when we were younger_

A joke, in honor of furious screaming and color changing hair and days where I swear I will kill him but silently wish to kiss him.

Lily and James, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.

First comes love, then comes hatred, then-

Well, then comes a war and death and it's not all a joke anymore, is it?

 _and free_

* * *

 _don't want to but i can't put anybody else above you_

It's hot out, but I'd rather be outside than in, stifling and suffocating in the endless demands of OWLs, even though they're ostensibly over and we can, supposedly, escape for a while.

But this is Hogwarts and you can't escape from everything, not even here, especially not here. And so here I am, perched on the root of a tree with my friends and he's over there with his friends and does it make me a terrible friend, that I'd rather be there than here?

* * *

 _i hate you i love you_

 _Mudblood_. What a horribly dirty word. It whispers and it shouts and then it screams, working its way through everything and especially me.

And again there's James _bloody_ Potter, and he's a prat, as he is-was-will always be, James _bloody_ Potter standing there in defense of me.

And some days I hate him and some days I love him a little more. And some days I can't choose which and those days are the best and the worst and it's Lily Evans and James Potter, standing by each other again.

And for God's sake (I suppose I am a Mudblood, then) I'm so tired of it.

So tired.

* * *

 _oh she don't see the light that's shining_

Graduation is supposed to be happy. But for me it's marking the transition from relative safety to no safety. Because once I leave these walls I have nothing and no one and I will be alone in the real world.

Or at least that's what I've been telling myself, since why on earth would James Potter want to stick with me? When a Pureblood could do _anything_ is this world and I can do nothing at all. So I'll live in my shadowed existence in this world and he'll live in his hallowed one and our paths won't cross, they _can't._

(I don't think anyone's told him that in my plans, he's supposed to abandon me)

 _deeper than the eyes can find it_

* * *

 _so she tries to cover up her pain_

I am alive and it is no thanks to Severus Snape and barely any to Albus Dumbledore and unfortunately I suppose I must acknowledge a certain James Potter, something I don't want to do but I suppose I might anyway.

And as I sit in my hospital bed (At St. Mungo's, not Madam Pomfrey's, because now we're adults and we should know what we're doing but truly we're children _still)_ he's perched next to me, looking highly uncomfortable with the whole situation as his fingers brush over a potion bottle and his lips brush over his thousandth apology to me.

But it's no one's fault that in the real world we're still children and we still act like it too, like we've been stuck at a table with only one biscuit for thousands to share. And children act like children, and lack sense and logic and common human decency, and that's why I'm sitting here in a hospital bed regretting every movement even though _Crucio_ is supposed to fade.

 _and cut her woes away_

* * *

 _can't keep my hands to myself_

In the heat of war I've found myself in love with someone.

Even in war or maybe because of war the flames are burning brighter like they're desperate to survive this, just like all of us, and that's why my best friends are getting married left and right _because we might not have that much time left so why not_.

Only it's not _we might_ but _we won't_ because we all know some of us won't escape these flames alive and so I'll let my own burn brighter thank you very much.

 _i wish i could but why would i want to_

* * *

 _god save the queen_

A fairytale: The prince found himself lonely and the lowly commoner found herself in love and together they fit like two halves of a whole.

 _there is no future in england's dreaming_

* * *

 _hello can you hear me_

When I was five, I had grand plans that only a child can have. I'd be a princess in a shining castle, with my own private herd of unicorns and a spellcaster to give me everything.

When I was ten, the fallacies of youth had yet to fade and although perhaps I wouldn't be a princess I thought I may, at very least, be distantly related to a wizard, perhaps. Because children like to dream.

Then I turned eleven, the rose tinted glasses of my childhood shattered, and _it_ became a possibility but it was vague, then I was fourteen and the world started falling down around us. And then I was seventeen and it was all too real and now here I am standing in my best friend's house watching her die.

And now she's dead dead _dead_.

And somehow James is standing here next to me.

 _i was wondering if after all this time you'd like to meet_

* * *

 _how is it you never notice_

He is everywhere and everything especially now, when he's kissing me like we're burning from the ground up and he's determined to get every last second of contact he can.

Shockingly enough I'm kissing him back and when his hands run through my hair and down my arms and lock around my waist I suddenly, completely, full recognize that _I have fallen in love with James Potter in the middle of a war._

And we are about to die.

 _you are slowly killing me_

* * *

 _and when you smile_

Here's a little game, it's called two truths and a lie.

I hated him for his stupid smile, and his stupid hair, and that _look_ , that one that said _I want you-_ only it wasn't rude it was an honest, wholesome truth.

Then I loved him for his smile and his hair and that stupid look because maybe I gave him the same one.

Then I loved him for his every little thing.

(Here's a hint: hate and love are the same emotions it's just the name you attach that lets you know you're being patently ridiculous and truly you loved him the whole time)

 _the whole world stops and stares for a while_

* * *

 _once i was twenty years old my story got told_

It is war, now, officially, and I just very nearly died last night. But I am in an office filled with oddities, and maybe, _maybe_ there I'll stay because how can you leave when you've just been told _one of your number will die?_ Actually die, not escape death, not cheat it, because war waits for no one.

And that number is three and three is too few and one of three is too noble to die and one of three is too young.

So

so

so

young and _that leaves you_.

* * *

 _put silver wings on my son's chest_

Because today is the day I die.

* * *

 _once i was seven years old_

To all that notice, that can see, it is sudden and unexpected and _oh-my-Merlin-James-and-Lily_ and then one day there's a child sitting in a home, his parents flying near but truly he's alone.


End file.
